'This Week' Transcript: Crisis in the Classroom

August 15, 2010

Page 11 of 15

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you, Donna and George -- I'm going to put up
this quote from Mark Zandi, the economist, which was in the Washington
Post, basically talking about the government -- talking about the
administration. They've played their policy hand, and they've got to
hope it's good enough. There's nothing they can do to make a
significant difference in the next six months or even a year.

WILL: Well, it's very difficult to go to the country, as I think
(inaudible) Donna would have them do, and say the government today is
dangerously frugal, because, in fact, the government's borrowing 42
cents of every dollar it's spending this year. There's no appetite in
the country or in the Congress.

And, indeed, the Democrats had been planning to have an election eve
Armageddon debate about extension of the Bush tax cuts, saying that this
-- sort of a class war, your argument, saying that this is tax cuts for
the rich. Now the Democratic position increasingly is the Bush tax cuts
were reckless, the Bush tax cuts were inequitable, and the Bush tax cuts
should be extended.

AMANPOUR: What do you say, Donna?

BRAZILE: The Bush tax cuts are unaffordable. We cannot simply
afford another $700 billion in debt that -- and there's no evidence that
the Bush tax cuts will create jobs.

AMANPOUR: But there are some who are saying that perhaps that might
happen...

BRAZILE: Well, I don't...

AMANPOUR: ... that the Democrats are under some pressure to maybe
-- maybe keep them on.

BRAZILE: I think they're under pressure to keep and extend those
tax cuts that will benefit Americans who earn $250,000 or less, but
there's no evidence that giving rich people more money will help create
the economic conditions that will put more people back to work.

AMANPOUR: Let's -- go ahead, Richard, and then we're going to move
on to the (inaudible) which is tightly connected.

HAASS: Exactly. But we also need to think about not simply the tax
cuts in isolation. They've got to be married to, among other things,
spending cuts. Look at what Germany is doing. They are growing now, in
part because they are carrying out economic policies of some
responsibility and some restraint.

The international markets will not fund this level of American
profligacy forever. As bad as things are now -- I hate to say it --
they could get a lot worse. We simply will not be able to sustain this
trajectory.

AMANPOUR: The difficulty is, of course, very significantly, you
know, senior economists differ. I mean, some are saying exactly the
opposite, there needs much more ease or stimulus, and only then start
with the deficit. So I think this for a lot of people is very
confusing, that economists at the top, top levels disagree.

But because of all of that, I think that's also causing quite a lot
of anxiety amongst voters. Certainly we're hearing it all the time. I
was at the rally, the Glenn Beck-led rally at the -- "Restoring Honor,"
yesterday, down on the mall. And certainly I got that impression from
people, that they were anxious about what's going on. Whatever you
think of the politics of it, you get the impression that when these
speeches come on, people want something to feel good about.